Clippings: "From the Irish Sea to the Golden Horn with Buffalo Bill" and "Among the Folks"

Clipping #1, handwritten title: “From the Irish Sea to the Golden Horn with Buffalo Bill”. Printed text: “If you had spent 10 years of your life traveling with two of the greatest of the many great American circuses which have been brought together, and if during that time you had covered Europe with lithographs and posters from the Irish sea to the Golden Horn - If you had done all this, would you settle down in a city of 130,000 people advertising for the Bryan company? Of course you would, if you had a wife and family who wanted you to be at home in your later years. You would settle down into a domestic existence far different from the strenuous life of the man who goes ahead of the circuses and advertises for them. For a few years you would be homesick every spring, but gradually you would get accustomed to the new life and learn to like it better than the previous one, although you would always cherish many fond memories of the days when you had to get up big billboard ads in a new language every week. Such is the experience of H.H. Gunning, one-time advertising manager of the Barnum-Bailey shows, and alter of the Buffalo Bill show after James A. Bailey became its principal owner. He is now local manager of the Bryan company here in Dayton. People who are interested in circus doings probably remember the European tours made by these great circuses, tours which awakened Europe, as it never before had been awakened, to the magnitude of American enterprise when engineered by a truly American brain. “James A. Bailey,” says Mr. Gunning, “was absolutely the greatest circus promoter that ever lived. Others since him may have invested more money in their shows and may have larger circuses, be he was the true pioneer in doing things on a big scale. Barnum was a greater showman, but Bailey was incomparably the greatest show manager.” Twenty years of the life of H.H. Gunning have been spent in the advertising end of the show business. He started in 1886, posting lithographs for the Barnum & Bailey circus at a salary of $25 a month and expenses. The next year he was getting $25 per week and expenses. In 1889 he was with the show when it made the first venture of its kind in Europe, giving 100 performances in London. In succeeding years he was connected with smaller circuses, gaining experience which led up to his work as head of the advertising brigades of the Barnum & Bailey and Buffalo Bill shows from 1897 to 1906, when the principal countries of Europe, excepting Russia, were covered with lithographs and posters telling of the great American shows which were coming. Right in the most historic spots of the continent did the advertising brigade, fore runners of the big show, post their streamers and screamers before the eyes of the amazed European peasants, to whom the wonders [Illegible] seemed beyond comprehensible [Illegible] were compelled to put up posters in a different language every day, and in some sections of Hungary had to use several languages on the same lithos. In one place it was necessary to make announcements in seven languages, while on one occasion people of 22 different tongues were dealt with in the space of a week. From Marseilles along the southern coast of France to Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, then southward to Rome and eastward to the opposite shores of Italy, was the route followed by the Buffalo Bill circus. Gunning and his helpers posted its bills under the very shadow of the leaning tower of Pisa, in the most sacred spots of the Holy City, in Rimini and Modena and Milan and Bologna, and later on the banks of Lake Como in Switzerland. Thence the circus, preceded by its advertising, “showed” at Trieste and various other points in Austria on the way to Vienna, whence it turned south through Hungary and gave performances in numerous places with unpronounceable names. It then turned north through Hungary and Galicia, hugging the Russian border, and finally east to Dresden and back through Bavaria to Alsace-Lorraine, thence north through Luxemburg to Belgium, where the final performances were given. Four years were required for the completion of this great European itinerary, and five years for one by the Barnum & Bailey outfit which preceded it. The two touched at the same points many times, but did not follow the same route all the way. Italy was not visited by it, but more performances were given in France and England. On account of the “unpleasantness” of 1898, Spain was not visited by either circus. Mr. Gunning has many tales of the wide-eyed manner in which Europeans received the circus. Unused to things planned and executed on a large scale, they could hardly believe their eyes and ears when some American agent ordered a few days of supplies of a certain article indispensable. “I remember,” says he, “a man who had charge of the renting of billboard space. At one place there was a building with a side about 70 feet long. He asked me how much of this I wanted. Without hesitating, I said I would take it all. He actually trembled, I think, and wouldn’t believe me until I repeatedly assured him that I wanted the whole thing, and then plenty of other places of similar size.” Many small merchants in the poorer sections of Europe were made to think themselves wealthy for the remainder of their days by a few sales to the circus people. Storekeepers in Hungarian communities couldn’t supply enough eggs for the breakfast of the advertising brigade. They didn’t sell them by the dozen, anyway; they had a price for each egg. In certain sections of Germany the circus had to dispense with the parade. People came from miles around to see the long line of wagons, and clowns, and bands, and marching elephants, and stood open-mouthed for two hours. At the conclusion of the demonstration the fathers and mothers would gather their children together and start home, thinking they had seen the show. “I doubt whether any circus will ever again be successful on the continent,” said Mr. Gunning last week, in talking over the events of nine years in Europe. “In the first place a circus is to the European an event of a generation. In the second place, there is today no James A. Bailey to direct a European tour. Of course, the war would make an enterprise of the kind impossible, anyhow; but, even if it had never come, it would have been a long time before a circus could have made a financial success of a trip through Europe.” The manager of the local Bryan company holds a high opinion of the business genius of the late Mr. Bailey, whose death occurred while the Buffalo Bill circus was winding up its European tour. He tells an interesting anecdote of the shrewdness which characterized the great showman. It was when the Barnum & Bailey circus had engaged the Olympia theater in London with its 600-foot stage, for a series of performances. A certain number of the lesser nobility was at the time a leading theater-owner in the city. Knowing that the presence of the American show would hurt the theatrical business for several years, this titled person made use of his official influence to block the performance. Two weeks before the date set for opening performance, Mr. Bailey was notified that an ordinance had been passed requiring that a fire-proof curtain be constructed in the Olympia before the show was given. The cost of such a curtain was $75,000, and the materials for its construction not readily accessible at the time. But, through almost superhuman efforts, it was finished the night before the circus was to have opened. And then, after the circus had closed, [Illegible] $5,000 was [Illegible] that the owners would agree to pay for the vast curtain. Bailey argued the matter to no avail, and finally closed up as tight as a clam, leaving the curtain in the Olympia. The matter was apparently forgotten and the theater owners began using the curtain for their own purposes. It enabled them to put on performances hitherto impossible on account of the absence of fire-proof facilities. Bailey said nothing. Two years afterward an enormous theatrical spectacle was to be given in the Olympia. Bailey heard of it, and suddenly appeared in London a few days before the opening night, announcing that he was now ready to take away his curtain, having found another place where he could make use of it. Aghast, the theater owners offered to buy it, and finally made a proposition commensurate with its cost. Little did the showmen think, when they searched out the distant corners of Europe, more than a decade ago, that they were visiting the scenes of some of the bloodiest conflicts of the great war of 1914, 1915 and 1916. In the great tour of 1906, described above, the circus touched at Czernowitz, Lemberg and Przmysl, cities which have found their way into streamers on the first pages of every American newspaper. Among the places visited on the present battle front in the western area are the now familiar names of Metz, Namur, Charleroi and Mons. The trip closed with a stay of four days in Brussels and one of two days in Antwerp. On other continental trips the Bailey circus touched at Verdun and Dunkirk, in France, and at Koenigsburg, Germany, al of which have at various times been mentioned prominently in war bulletins. Probably almost the entire area of fighting in the war, exception that which ahs been carried on in Russian territory and in the Balkans, was traversed by the circus. “There were many things to be learned on the big tours,” says Mr. Gunning, commenting on his experience as advertising manager of the two shows, “but there was one thing I never learned. That was how to pronounce ‘P-t-z-e-l-m-y-s-l.’ Many persons have asked me in recent months, but I know as little about it as if I had never seen the place.” Small boys who have circus ambitions and are ridiculed for the same should make acquaintance of Mr. Gunning. He ought to prove a sympathizer. Though the circus business has had many bitter critics, even enemies, he waves them all aside and says the experience is a valuable one. “I am spending, of course [Illegible] advertising end of the business,” said he, in talking over the subject of working with a circus. “I don’t know enough about the performers to say anything about that part of it. I can, however, state this much; most performers are the children of other performers, and have been trained from their childhood. This lessens the chances of persons without the early advantages of training. “Of the advertising part of it though, I have only good things to say. I gained an experience which I would not exchange for any other that I know, and I believe that many of those who were with me in the European trips would say the same. There is nothing better suited to teach one to take care of himself under the most unusual and trying circumstances. Personally, I would never have given it up if it had not been for my desire to enjoy home life. “But, in spite of my anxiety to settle down, I used to be afraid to stand at a railroad crossing with a train going past. The impulse to go to another distant corner of the globe was strong.” Clipping #2: "Among the Folks by Chub DeWolfe Toledo, Ohio, Friday, February 27, 1942 * * One of the best known circus advertising and press agents in the country lives in Toledo. He is Harrison H. Gunning, of Machen Street, now retired. Mr. Gunning has toured both Europe and America, and was with Buffalo Bill for years. Buffalo Bill's birthday anniversary was Thursday, Feb. 26, and his name was William F. Cody. Buffalo Bill's birthday is a state holiday in Wyoming and the Cody family in Cleveland will observe the birthday anniversary at a dinner in a hotel there on Saturday, although the real date is Feb. 26. Mr. and Mrs. Gunning have invitations to attend as honored guests. Buffalo Bill and Mrs. Cody are buried on Lookout Mountain, not far from Denver, 6,800 feet above sea level, the nearest town being Golden."

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Clipping #1, handwritten title: “From the Irish Sea to the Golden Horn with Buffalo Bill”. Printed text: “If you had spent 10 years of your life traveling with two of the greatest of the many great American circuses which have been brought together, and if during that time you had covered Europe with lithographs and posters from the Irish sea to the Golden Horn - If you had done all this, would you settle down in a city of 130,000 people advertising for the Bryan company? Of course you would, if you had a wife and family who wanted you to be at home in your later years. You would settle down into a domestic existence far different from the strenuous life of the man who goes ahead of the circuses and advertises for them. For a few years you would be homesick every spring, but gradually you would get accustomed to the new life and learn to like it better than the previous one, although you would always cherish many fond memories of the days when you had to get up big billboard ads in a new language every week. Such is the experience of H.H. Gunning, one-time advertising manager of the Barnum-Bailey shows, and alter of the Buffalo Bill show after James A. Bailey became its principal owner. He is now local manager of the Bryan company here in Dayton. People who are interested in circus doings probably remember the European tours made by these great circuses, tours which awakened Europe, as it never before had been awakened, to the magnitude of American enterprise when engineered by a truly American brain. “James A. Bailey,” says Mr. Gunning, “was absolutely the greatest circus promoter that ever lived. Others since him may have invested more money in their shows and may have larger circuses, be he was the true pioneer in doing things on a big scale. Barnum was a greater showman, but Bailey was incomparably the greatest show manager.” Twenty years of the life of H.H. Gunning have been spent in the advertising end of the show business. He started in 1886, posting lithographs for the Barnum & Bailey circus at a salary of $25 a month and expenses. The next year he was getting $25 per week and expenses. In 1889 he was with the show when it made the first venture of its kind in Europe, giving 100 performances in London. In succeeding years he was connected with smaller circuses, gaining experience which led up to his work as head of the advertising brigades of the Barnum & Bailey and Buffalo Bill shows from 1897 to 1906, when the principal countries of Europe, excepting Russia, were covered with lithographs and posters telling of the great American shows which were coming. Right in the most historic spots of the continent did the advertising brigade, fore runners of the big show, post their streamers and screamers before the eyes of the amazed European peasants, to whom the wonders [Illegible] seemed beyond comprehensible [Illegible] were compelled to put up posters in a different language every day, and in some sections of Hungary had to use several languages on the same lithos. In one place it was necessary to make announcements in seven languages, while on one occasion people of 22 different tongues were dealt with in the space of a week. From Marseilles along the southern coast of France to Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, then southward to Rome and eastward to the opposite shores of Italy, was the route followed by the Buffalo Bill circus. Gunning and his helpers posted its bills under the very shadow of the leaning tower of Pisa, in the most sacred spots of the Holy City, in Rimini and Modena and Milan and Bologna, and later on the banks of Lake Como in Switzerland. Thence the circus, preceded by its advertising, “showed” at Trieste and various other points in Austria on the way to Vienna, whence it turned south through Hungary and gave performances in numerous places with unpronounceable names. It then turned north through Hungary and Galicia, hugging the Russian border, and finally east to Dresden and back through Bavaria to Alsace-Lorraine, thence north through Luxemburg to Belgium, where the final performances were given. Four years were required for the completion of this great European itinerary, and five years for one by the Barnum & Bailey outfit which preceded it. The two touched at the same points many times, but did not follow the same route all the way. Italy was not visited by it, but more performances were given in France and England. On account of the “unpleasantness” of 1898, Spain was not visited by either circus. Mr. Gunning has many tales of the wide-eyed manner in which Europeans received the circus. Unused to things planned and executed on a large scale, they could hardly believe their eyes and ears when some American agent ordered a few days of supplies of a certain article indispensable. “I remember,” says he, “a man who had charge of the renting of billboard space. At one place there was a building with a side about 70 feet long. He asked me how much of this I wanted. Without hesitating, I said I would take it all. He actually trembled, I think, and wouldn’t believe me until I repeatedly assured him that I wanted the whole thing, and then plenty of other places of similar size.” Many small merchants in the poorer sections of Europe were made to think themselves wealthy for the remainder of their days by a few sales to the circus people. Storekeepers in Hungarian communities couldn’t supply enough eggs for the breakfast of the advertising brigade. They didn’t sell them by the dozen, anyway; they had a price for each egg. In certain sections of Germany the circus had to dispense with the parade. People came from miles around to see the long line of wagons, and clowns, and bands, and marching elephants, and stood open-mouthed for two hours. At the conclusion of the demonstration the fathers and mothers would gather their children together and start home, thinking they had seen the show. “I doubt whether any circus will ever again be successful on the continent,” said Mr. Gunning last week, in talking over the events of nine years in Europe. “In the first place a circus is to the European an event of a generation. In the second place, there is today no James A. Bailey to direct a European tour. Of course, the war would make an enterprise of the kind impossible, anyhow; but, even if it had never come, it would have been a long time before a circus could have made a financial success of a trip through Europe.” The manager of the local Bryan company holds a high opinion of the business genius of the late Mr. Bailey, whose death occurred while the Buffalo Bill circus was winding up its European tour. He tells an interesting anecdote of the shrewdness which characterized the great showman. It was when the Barnum & Bailey circus had engaged the Olympia theater in London with its 600-foot stage, for a series of performances. A certain number of the lesser nobility was at the time a leading theater-owner in the city. Knowing that the presence of the American show would hurt the theatrical business for several years, this titled person made use of his official influence to block the performance. Two weeks before the date set for opening performance, Mr. Bailey was notified that an ordinance had been passed requiring that a fire-proof curtain be constructed in the Olympia before the show was given. The cost of such a curtain was $75,000, and the materials for its construction not readily accessible at the time. But, through almost superhuman efforts, it was finished the night before the circus was to have opened. And then, after the circus had closed, [Illegible] $5,000 was [Illegible] that the owners would agree to pay for the vast curtain. Bailey argued the matter to no avail, and finally closed up as tight as a clam, leaving the curtain in the Olympia. The matter was apparently forgotten and the theater owners began using the curtain for their own purposes. It enabled them to put on performances hitherto impossible on account of the absence of fire-proof facilities. Bailey said nothing. Two years afterward an enormous theatrical spectacle was to be given in the Olympia. Bailey heard of it, and suddenly appeared in London a few days before the opening night, announcing that he was now ready to take away his curtain, having found another place where he could make use of it. Aghast, the theater owners offered to buy it, and finally made a proposition commensurate with its cost. Little did the showmen think, when they searched out the distant corners of Europe, more than a decade ago, that they were visiting the scenes of some of the bloodiest conflicts of the great war of 1914, 1915 and 1916. In the great tour of 1906, described above, the circus touched at Czernowitz, Lemberg and Przmysl, cities which have found their way into streamers on the first pages of every American newspaper. Among the places visited on the present battle front in the western area are the now familiar names of Metz, Namur, Charleroi and Mons. The trip closed with a stay of four days in Brussels and one of two days in Antwerp. On other continental trips the Bailey circus touched at Verdun and Dunkirk, in France, and at Koenigsburg, Germany, al of which have at various times been mentioned prominently in war bulletins. Probably almost the entire area of fighting in the war, exception that which ahs been carried on in Russian territory and in the Balkans, was traversed by the circus. “There were many things to be learned on the big tours,” says Mr. Gunning, commenting on his experience as advertising manager of the two shows, “but there was one thing I never learned. That was how to pronounce ‘P-t-z-e-l-m-y-s-l.’ Many persons have asked me in recent months, but I know as little about it as if I had never seen the place.” Small boys who have circus ambitions and are ridiculed for the same should make acquaintance of Mr. Gunning. He ought to prove a sympathizer. Though the circus business has had many bitter critics, even enemies, he waves them all aside and says the experience is a valuable one. “I am spending, of course [Illegible] advertising end of the business,” said he, in talking over the subject of working with a circus. “I don’t know enough about the performers to say anything about that part of it. I can, however, state this much; most performers are the children of other performers, and have been trained from their childhood. This lessens the chances of persons without the early advantages of training. “Of the advertising part of it though, I have only good things to say. I gained an experience which I would not exchange for any other that I know, and I believe that many of those who were with me in the European trips would say the same. There is nothing better suited to teach one to take care of himself under the most unusual and trying circumstances. Personally, I would never have given it up if it had not been for my desire to enjoy home life. “But, in spite of my anxiety to settle down, I used to be afraid to stand at a railroad crossing with a train going past. The impulse to go to another distant corner of the globe was strong.” Clipping #2: "Among the Folks by Chub DeWolfe Toledo, Ohio, Friday, February 27, 1942 * * One of the best known circus advertising and press agents in the country lives in Toledo. He is Harrison H. Gunning, of Machen Street, now retired. Mr. Gunning has toured both Europe and America, and was with Buffalo Bill for years. Buffalo Bill's birthday anniversary was Thursday, Feb. 26, and his name was William F. Cody. Buffalo Bill's birthday is a state holiday in Wyoming and the Cody family in Cleveland will observe the birthday anniversary at a dinner in a hotel there on Saturday, although the real date is Feb. 26. Mr. and Mrs. Gunning have invitations to attend as honored guests. Buffalo Bill and Mrs. Cody are buried on Lookout Mountain, not far from Denver, 6,800 feet above sea level, the nearest town being Golden."

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